I was talking to a friend the other day about authors we liked, and only when I saw her blank face did it occur to me that I'm in a very privileged position of knowing about a lot more great authors than she does.

My friend browses Waterstone's and the book review pages of the national papers to find out what's being published whereas I look through my blog roll at what my blog friends are publishing - they are self-publishing, and they're being published by both small independent publishers and traditional publishers.

As a result I'm reading a variety of genres that until a couple of years ago I'd never even have considered picking off the shelf. Some of these authors, in blogging circles, are veritable superstars, and their names and books really ought to be more widely known. So I'm going to share some of them with you now: